Birds & US (Biology Today‪)‬

I am sitting down to write this article in early summer, and lately I've heard more than one person complain about birds waking them up in what my human friends consider the middle of the night--3:00 or 4:00 am. As often happens when I think about the living world, I'm reminded of something Aldo Leopold (1949) wrote, in this case, in an essay called "Too Early." He describes the very early morning, before first light, as the "most pleasant and least useful time" (p. 59), and "to arrive too early in the marsh is an adventure in pure listening" (p. 61). I'll admit that I am not as willing as Leopold was to put on the coffee pot and then go out with a notebook to enjoy the sounds of nature, but I don't mind lying in bed and letting the birds keep me awake for awhile. They are so passionate about their business, so seemingly earnest and industrious, to declare that their day has started and that others better respect their presence. I live in a suburb just outside New York City, so we have grass and bushes and trees, and therefore we have birds. Nothing too exotic, but enough different species to make the sounds of the morning interesting. Yet even in Manhattan, there are a lot of birds. Yes, pigeons count in my book. I know they are a nuisance, but just spend some time observing them, and you have to appreciate their skill, industriousness, and persistence. However, because of Central Park, there are more species of birds in Manhattan than in many other urban areas. As Jonathan Rosen (2008) explains in his book on birds, Central Park is such a great bird Mecca precisely because it is in the middle of the city--birds are attracted to the only large green area in a sea of buildings. Rosen lives in Manhattan and does his bird watching in the Park, as do many others. Marie Winn (1998) has written a great book on New York City birders and their passions.